/home/user: change directory failed error

accountshomeusers

I just installed Arch reading from the Beginners' Guide on the Arch Wiki. Once I rebooted Arch, I logged into root then I added my own personal account: useradd fox then passwd fox and set my password for the account. Once I logged in with fox I was prompted with the error --fox: /home/fox: change directory failed: No such file or directory. Logging in with home = "/".

Why I'm receiving this error and how I can fix it?

Best Answer

You need to tell useradd to create your home directory:

useradd -m fox

You might also want to add options for group(s) -g -G, login-shell -s etc.

But don't worry - you can create your homedir now (as root using sudo or su):

# mkdir /home/fox
# chown fox:fox /home/fox

See Arch Linux Documentation - User Management

Related Solutions

User created without a password behaves as if he had one

A user is created by default as a locked account. The field that should contain the password hash in /etc/shadow will contain !!. When an account is locked, that account is available to root only (root can su but logins aren't allowed). If you 'unlock' the account which simply removes the !! you will be allowed to change the password.

[root@test ~]# su - test
[test@test ~]$ passwd
Changing password for user test.
Changing password for test.
(current) UNIX password:
[test@test ~]$ exit
logout
[root@test ~]# passwd -u test
Unlocking password for user test.
passwd: Warning: unlocked password would be empty.
passwd: Unsafe operation (use -f to force)
[root@test ~]# passwd -u test -f
Unlocking password for user test.
passwd: Success
[root@test ~]# su - test
[test@test ~]$ passwd
Changing password for user test.
New password:

Linux – ArchLinux | Login password does not work after creating new user account

The -p parameter to useradd expects an encrypted password. It would be bad security practice to give a password in a command line. This is because every process on the system can read all command lines (except when using containers). So, the useradd command will not accept a plaintext password but force you to encrypt it before giving it as a parameter.

Set the password interactively afterwards:

passwd me

Best Answer

Related Solutions

User created without a password behaves as if he had one

Linux – ArchLinux | Login password does not work after creating new user account

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